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Military

The Museum's superb military collections document the history of the men and women of the armed forces of the United States. The collections include ordnance, firearms, and swords; uniforms and insignia; national and military flags and banners; and many other objects.

The strength of the collections lies in their enormous depth. Some 3,000 military small arms and 2,400 civilian firearms document the mechanical and technological history of the infantryman's weapons from the beginning of the gunpowder era to the present. Among the 4,000 swords and knives in the collection are many spectacular presentation pieces. The collections also include Civil War era telegraph equipment, home front artifacts from both world wars, early computers such as ENIAC, Whirlwind, and Sage, and materials carried at antiwar demonstrations.

Pancho Villa is one of the most recognizable leaders of the Mexico Revolution. This civil war, which lasted from 1910-1921, was fought to curb U.S. corporate interests and to redistribute agricultural lands, especially for indigenous communities. It was a social revolution that reasserted popular culture and the value of "Mexican-ness." It was also a prolonged, violent conflict that spread death and hunger throughout Mexico, spurring migrants north, mostly into El Paso, Los Angeles, and other historically Mexican U.S. cities. With them came ideas, images, and language for organizing laborers and the rural poor. These ideas and images percolated in the popular culture of Mexican Americans and reappear in the art and activism of Chicanos in the 1960s and 1970s. On the back of this candle depicting Villa are prayers written in English and Spanish asking him to grant the petitioner some of the insight and prowess that enshrined this bandit, social revolutionary, and media star in the mythology of modern Mexico.

This engraving shows Hernán Cortés (1485–1547), the Spanish captain who headed the conquest of the Aztec Empire. He became a part of popular mythology the moment he arrived in Mexico in 1521. Cortés had spent time in Cuba killing and enslaving its indigenous inhabitants and administering the new social order of the Spanish colonies of the Caribbean. As his well-read memoirs attest, even his experiences in Cuba did not prepare him for the history-altering intrigues, battles, and cultural encounters between the Spanish and the Mexicans, Mayas, and their many neighbors in between. Motivated by an ancient notion of fame, Hernán Cortés wrote his own version of the conquest of Mexico that put him squarely at the center, favored by the Christian God. But neither his victories nor his pillage of the Mexican capital would have been possible without the aid of soldiers, slaves, and supplies from the enemies of the Aztecs. As a testament to Cortés's enduring fame, his portrait by the Spanish painter Antonio Carnicero was published as an engraving by Manuel Salvador y Carmona in 1791 in the book, Retratos de los españoles ilustres, con un epítome de sus vidas, (Portraits of Illustrious Spaniards, with a Synopsis of Their Lives.)

Mexican Americans have served in U.S. armed forces since the Civil War. But it was the generation of Mexican Americans returning from World War II who mobilized their communities and changed the political landscape of the West. Laying the groundwork for the Chicano movement of the 1960s, organizations like the American G.I. Forum began advocating on behalf of Hispanic veterans who were denied the educational, health care, housing, and other rights guaranteed by the G.I. Bill. Often working in concert with the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and other Latino civil rights organizations, the Texas-based G.I. Forum soon engaged in broader social battles over school desegregation and voter registration rights. Today, the G.I. Forum is a nationally recognized source of scholarships among Mexican American students. This paño, titled Valor, the Spanish word for courage, commemorates the Korean War Medal of Honor winner Rodolfo Hernández. Paños are an art form created traditionally by Chicano prisoners on white handkerchiefs. Often mailed as gifts to friends and families, the images on paños remember loved ones, depict important memories, and tell stories about the dark side of life, as well as redemption. The maker of this paño is unknown.

This pile of five-peseta coins was fused together by the fire aboard the Spanish ship Infanta Maria Teresa, flagship of Admiral Pascual Cervera.

General History

Infanta Maria Teresa led the sortie out of Santiago Bay on July 3, 1898. As the flagship of Admiral Pascual Cervera, it drew the bulk of the American fire. The Teresa was seriously damaged and on fire. An attempt was made to ram Commodore Winfield Schley's flagship, USS Brooklyn, but when that failed, Admiral Cervera ran theTeresa ashore, allowing his crew to be saved. Despite being ravaged by fire and magazine explosions, the United States Navy believed the Teresa was salvageable. It was refloated and taken to Guantanamo Bay for preliminary repairs. As it was towed to Norfolk, Virginia, for rebuilding, it was caught in a tropical storm. The tow line was cut, and the Teresa was lost at sea.